StarHeart.US/Water.html
8 Jun 04 - Copyright 1999-2005 by Andrew Homer - Webmeister StarHeart
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Water: Dihydrogen Monoxide
Fresh
water is scarce. Worldwide water use has tripled since 1950, resulting in huge
water deficits in key river basins in China and India. In India, with its one
billion population, the extraction of water from aquifers is twice its annual
recharge. - Gaiam
Real Goods
Big
Business & Politicians vs. the People
Ceremony Set for Water Reuse Project by
Tania Soussan, 7-5-99, Albuquerque Journal
This
week marks a major milestone in the city's bid to end its reliance on the aquafer.
On Thursday, Mayor Jim Baca and others will celebrate the groundbreaking
of a massive recycling project that will take water from microchip manufacturers
and use it on soccer fields at the Balloon Fiesta Park and to irrigate other areas.
The $5 million project will be the first such water-reuse system in Albuquerque
and the first component of the city's far-reaching water-resources management
strategy.
"It's first and it could be most important," Baca
said, adding that such projects are vital because the city has a finite supply
of water. "I don't know where you get more water other than the water you
save."
City water resources manager
John Stomp said the project also shows that "these rate increases that people
are paying are actually going to projects."
The City Council in
1997 adopted a plan to create a sustainable water supply for the region's growing
population.
The centerpiece of the strategy
calls for using the city's San Juan-Chama river water for drinking by 2004. The
San Juan-Chama water is diverted from Colorado to New Mexico and flows through
the Rio Grande. The city is studying possible ways to take that water from the
river.
The plan also laid out a series of water-rate increases needed
to pay for the $180 million in startup costs for the entire strategy. A 4.5 %
rate hike in May was the third increase so far.
The North I-25 recycling
project will take waste water from microchip manufacturers Philips Semiconductors,
Sumitomo Sitix Silicon and Silmax and pump it to the Balloon Park and other irrigation
and industrial users in the area.
Eventually, water reuse could make
it unnecessary to pump 3.5 million gallons of high-quality ground water a day.
"By reusing it, we're getting more bang for the buck," Baca said.
Funding for the project is coming from the city, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
and private industry.
The Plan for a Sustainable Water Supply
Infiltration Galleries -
The city is studying
four possible ways to take water from the river. Two involve underground infiltration
galleries, large perforated pipes similar to French drains extending for miles
along the river. Two other methods would take water through the Middle Rio Grande
Conservancy District's existing diversion alternatives and treatment plant.
Water Treatment Plant -
A public meeting will be
held in August to discuss possible sites for the plant that will take water from
the river and clean it to drinking water quality. The city also will do an environmental
impact statement for the project.
Rebuttal by Bob Anderson, Green Party
candidate, 1st Congressional District
"Dear
Journal Letters to the Editor:
There
they go again: politicians and big business raising our taxes and calling it good
ecology. The water reuse project on North I-25 (Alb Journal 7-5-99, Ceremony Set
for Water Reuse Project) is not a plan for a sustainable water supply.
Sadly, Mayor Baca is trying to cover up the mistakes of past politicians who lured
high intensity water users as Intel, Philips Semiconductors, Sumitomo Sitix Silicon
and Silmax into this area. Short term thinking politicians allowed these big water
users free access to our high quality aquifer water which now turns out to be
in short supply.
Chip manufacturing belongs in high natural water regions
as Oregon, not in the desert. Instead of telling the chip plants to recycle or
import water, the public is being told to pay higher rates for poorer quality
imported water while big business gets a free ride.
The
phoney sustainable water plan also encourages the illusion of Albuquerque being
New Jersey by trying to create large grassy fields in the desert, with the contaminated
chip waste water. This heavy metal waste water will eventually work its way down
into the aquifer. We should not be pouring poison into our canteen. None of this
plan is what can be called sustainable, it is an old fashion corporate subsidy,
more corporate welfare.
A real sustainable plan for our water crisis
would preserve first the aquifer water needed by humans rather than give it away
for use by machines. A sustainable plan would not try to hide the problem and
create unnecessary taxes on working and poor people. This area is a desert, but
some of our political leaders act as it is a lush tropical site existing for the
benefit of outside corporate stockholders."
To put the above story into a larger context, here are
factoids from the Christian Childrens
Fund:
1.2 Billion People, Or A Quarter
Of The World'S Population, Lack Access To Safe Drinking Water
Facts at a Glance:
Less than
1% of the earth's water is available for human consumption.
Water covers
3/4 of the earth's surface, but more than 97% of the earth's water is saltwater
in the oceans, and less than 3% is fresh water. Of the latter, 77% is frozen in
polar ice caps and glaciers, 22% is groundwater, and the remaining small fraction
is in lakes, rivers, plants and animals.
Worldwide, irrigation for agriculture
accounts for about 73% of water use; 21% goes to industry, and the other 6% to
domestic use.
About 1.3 billion people (1990)
do not have access to the 20-liter daily minimum set by the World Health Organization.
In contrast, per capita water use in some industrialized countries is over 1,000
liters a day.
About 1.2 billion people, or a quarter of the world's population,
lack access to safe drinking water.
Water hauling by rural women and
children -- typically a walk of two to three hours each day -- can consume 600
calories or more, using up to 1/3 of the daily nutritional intake.
In
urban areas, families living in slums frequently use 10% of their earnings to
buy water.
Ceremony Set for Water Reuse Project
